Jerusalem - Calling for a US-backed peace plan to get another
chance, Yasser Arafat appealed to Palestinian militants to halt attacks on Israelis,
while his newly appointed security adviser urged Washington to restrain Israel.

Militants formally abandoned their nearly two-month unilateral cease-fire
after Israel responded to a deadly suicide bombing in Jerusalem last week with
missile strikes on Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip.

But a Hamas leader
quickly rejected a new truce. And Israel, which has tried to sideline Arafat from
the "road map" peace process, dismissed it as empty rhetoric, saying
the army would keep up its pursuit of terror suspects.

Arafat stepped forward
with the appeal on Wednesday in a midst of a power struggle with his prime minister,
Mahmoud Abbas, and with the United States pressing the Palestinians to act against
militants, a key requirement under the creaking peace plan.

Arafat has
rejected US demands he give Abbas control of key security forces that would lead
any sustained crackdown, and instead appointed his own security adviser: the tough
former West Bank security chief Jibril Rajoub.

Rajoub openly supports the
peace plan and has arrested militants in the past. But in an interview with The
Associated Press, he was evasive over whether he would launch a crackdown now,
and suggested Israel should stop military action first.

"The ball
is now in the American court to pressure Israel and monitor the process of implementation,"
Rajoub said. "If Israel stops its attacks and begins to take serious steps
to end the occupation, all the conditions that are demanded of the Palestinians
will be fulfilled on the spot."

Abbas staked his political future
on being able to rein in Palestinian militants through persuasion, rather than
force. With his authority crumbling, Abbas was to present the achievements of
his first 100 days in office to parliament on Monday, and aides said he was planning
to seek a vote of confidence.

"All options are open," Hatem Abdel
Qader, a legislator from the ruling Fatah movement, said of the outcome of a possible
vote.

Snubbed Abbas' call

Israel has already snubbed Abbas' call
to join any new cease-fire, demanding that instead Palestinian security forces
clamp down on armed groups and carry out arrests.

But Palestinian leaders
say moving forcefully against the militants in the wake of the Israeli raids could
spark civil war.

In his statement on Wednesday, Arafat called on armed
groups to renew their commitment to a truce and "to give a chance to political
and peaceful efforts by the international community to implement the road map."

But a Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip rejected new ceasefire talks, saying
Israel had shattered the previous one by killing a senior Hamas leader last Thursday.

"We say it clearly that after the assassination of martyr Ismail Abu
Shanab, the truce has been destroyed," Abdel Aziz Al Rantissi told the Dubai-based
Al Arabiya satellite channel.

Raanan Gissin, an adviser to Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon, said Arafat's statement was in any case meaningless. "Arafat
has never stopped supporting the strategy of terror," Gissin said. "He
has over 60% of the Palestinian Authority forces under his control and has done
nothing with them to pursue a peaceful solution. He has no interest in a peaceful
solution."

The US government, meanwhile, kept the heat on Arafat to
hand over those powers and said Rajoub's arrival was a side-issue.

"What
we want is to see all the Palestinian security forces consolidated under Mr. Abbas.
That's the point. It's not the personality," State Department spokesperson
Philip T Reeker said.

The armed groups declared June 29 that they were
halting attacks on Israel for three months but later claimed the right to retaliate
for Israeli military strikes.

During the cease-fire, the militants carried
out three bombings, including last week's Jerusalem bus attack, which killed 21
people.

In retaliation, Israel killed Shanab in the first of three missile
strikes, prompting militant groups to formally call off the truce.